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And outside the Capitol, the top Republican leaders, including Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) engaged in a PR campaign to win over conservative interest groups and opinion-makers.

The Republican leadership trio has privately reached out to conservative TV personalities like Sean Hannity and Brit Hume, and Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot, National Review’s Kate O’Beirne, Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard, David Brooks of The New York Times, George Will, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and groups such as The Heritage Foundation, among others, have all heard from Republican leadership. And even former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), the chairman of FreedomWorks and a tea party favorite, got a call from GOP leaders.

There aren’t many positive aspects to the looming possibility of a U.S. debt default. But there has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief – of the black-humor variety – in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy.

A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask.

Why, yes, it has.

But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye.

And may I say to those suddenly agonizing over the mental health of one of our two major parties: People like YOU bear some responsibility for that party’s current state.

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Here’s the point: those within the G.O.P. who had misgivings about the embrace of tax-cut fanaticism might have made a stronger stand if there had been any indication that such fanaticism came with a price, if outsiders had been willing to condemn those who took irresponsible positions.

But there has been no such price. Mr. Bush squandered the surplus of the late Clinton years, yet prominent pundits pretend that the two parties share equal blame for our debt problems.

Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, proposed a supposed deficit-reduction plan that included huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, then received an award for fiscal responsibility.

So there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality – and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been lampooned in recent days after his office clarified his wildly inaccurate statements about Planned Parenthood in the Senate Floor last week by telling CNN it was “not intended to be a factual statement.”

Yesterday, Kyl walked back his walk back, saying he “misspoke” on the floor and that the “factual statement” statement “WAS NOT ME – THAT WAS MY PRESS PERSON.”

FANG: Today, you unveiled your new campaign slogan, “Fighting to make America America again.” But was it intentional that this line was borrowed from the pro-union poem by the gay poet Langston Hughes?

SANTORUM: NO, BECAUSE I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT, so –

FANG: Oh, alright thanks. Wait did you have a clarification there? Was it just a coincidence?

SANTORUM: I didn’t know that. The folks who worked on that slogan for me didn’t inform me that that’s where it came from, if in fact it came from that.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

Note: Hey, I’m only guessing here, but perhaps Santoum’s ‘person’ STOPPED READING at this point, and didn’t get to this:

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.I am the red man driven from the land,I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–And finding only the same old stupid planOf dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.